Tired of Crappy Support by Cable Providers, cutting the cord!

[Cos]

I have had Wide Open West for a total of 10 years, 1 year I tried Comcast but came back because customer service is so bad. Well WOW caught up, they now have 30 min hold times, then transfer 2 times to the wrong department each requiring another 20-30 minutes.

Down since Sunday...Right before Preacher

I call them I have no internet, no cable, no anything, my ooma phone is tied to internet. My Garage Door is tied to the internet.

Oh we can be out there in 4 days....4 days!!!!! really. So I call to cancel and you guessed it, another 30 minute hold, another 30 min transfer for another 20 min call and finally cut them out.

My only choice: Comcast (or ComCrap). I am doing the 59.00 75Mb Internet with HBO and I am using the PlayStation Vue TV services at 44.50. I will have all my local channels, DVR, all the cable channels I watch and HBO for about the same price I pay now, only difference is I am paying less to the cable provider. I already have 2 Roku devices (3 & 4) along with and Amazon Fire TV so I have all my TVs covered. I just hope this all works

 

[TheWarrior]

I've been cable free for over a decade now! There is no news worth watching, it should be read! Interviews and speeches are on the internet. The only thing I'm missing is F1 racing, but I just go watch with my Dad anyway!

 

[TheWarrior]

Oh Btw, I use comcast for cable internet, price just dropped... woohoo!

 

[j_garcia]

I cut mine about 5 years ago

 

[its phillip]

I haven't had cable or satellite TV service for well over a decade. Just internet and streaming services. I did buy one of those flat OTA antennas a few years ago in case I wanted to watch anything local but I almost never do.

 

[Seth=L]

I'm 30 years old now and I have never purchased cable. When I lived at home we had Direct TV satellite service for about 5 years before I moved out (they still have it). I have internet service only. I have a subscription to Netflix and a decent collection of movies and series. I also have an XBOX ONE. Don't feel the need for cable. Paying to watch commercials is insane. Paying for 500 channels when I would only watch 2-3 of them is insane.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Last time I tuned into live TV was on Dec31th midnight to watch stupid ball drop. Don't even know why. I work 2 mins slow walk from the damn ball.
Only reason I still have tv (only basic package) and phone is since my triple play with 100Mbps Internet is cheaper than same internet speed by itself (due to grandfathered promo price). My current bill including everything is $99 but it expires soon.
That said after new French overlords took over (Altice) if I don't get same promo price, I'll will just get a bit slower internet (maybe 75mbps) and the hell with their tv/phone.

 

[j_garcia]

My grandfathered price just expired and I am now shopping. Comcast knows their subscribers are dropping so they're offering better deals for the bundles than for just internet now. I may break down and do it to save $20/mo for 2X faster internet (200 mbps) even if it means I make their numbers look like they added a subscriber.

 

[speakerman39]

Back in the day I had cable with a company named Horizon TCI and thought it was decent. Then, they sold out to Insight Communications. Had them for the longest time and always thought they were good for the most part. That is, in terms of offerings/prices, and etc. Then, Time Warner entered the picture. Really no major complaints with them. Was told that Comcast was buying them out only to find out that Charter actually bought them out. So, who knows what is going to happen now.

I have basic and expanded cable, land-line phone, and 30 meg internet. Got a letter telling me I have been upgraded free of charge to 50 meg internet. My total bill is $81 a month. No complaints really. But, I am so bored with cable it is not even funny. Really don't watch must TV and when I do I mainly do is just flip through all of the channels. Not much on that interests me. The thing is though, if I take my cable out, then my phone and internet bill goes up. But why? So, actually keeping my cable saves me money. Makes no sense but that is how it is. So, who knows what Charter is going to do. Have no earthly idea. Time will tell.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[herbu]

I'll will just get a bit slower internet (maybe 75mbps)

Awww... my heart bleeds for you. We average 5-6Mbps. Theoretical max is 10, but we never come close. FYI, it's fast enough for streaming movie on FireTV, Pandora on my Thinkpad and wife surfing the web on her Ipad, all at the same time.

I'm sooo sorry you may have to drop to 75. Bless your heart.

 

[highfigh]

I have had Wide Open West for a total of 10 years, 1 year I tried Comcast but came back because customer service is so bad. Well WOW caught up, they now have 30 min hold times, then transfer 2 times to the wrong department each requiring another 20-30 minutes.

Down since Sunday...Right before Preacher

I call them I have no internet, no cable, no anything, my ooma phone is tied to internet. My Garage Door is tied to the internet.

Oh we can be out there in 4 days....4 days!!!!! really. So I call to cancel and you guessed it, another 30 minute hold, another 30 min transfer for another 20 min call and finally cut them out.

My only choice: Comcast (or ComCrap). I am doing the 59.00 75Mb Internet with HBO and I am using the PlayStation Vue TV services at 44.50. I will have all my local channels, DVR, all the cable channels I watch and HBO for about the same price I pay now, only difference is I am paying less to the cable provider. I already have 2 Roku devices (3 & 4) along with and Amazon Fire TV so I have all my TVs covered. I just hope this all works

You ought to try living in the Midwest, like Milwaukee. ATT U-verse offers a SPECIAL PROMOTION of 15Mbs for $30, but only if you're a new customer or you threaten to leave over the normal rate of $65 for the same speed, which is more than you would pay for 75Mbs, which we can barely get from Time Warner for almost $100. The both offer an $89 package for Phone, TV and Internet, but the internet speed at that price is 5Mbs, which is almost useless at this point.

I cut the cord for TV quite a while ago and while there's clearly not as much to watch, I did it partially because I don't want to be a slave to TV, I don't like having to sign up for 2nd and 3rd tier channels just so I can watch a few more out of the many that come with it and I refuse to pay $100/month just to watch TV. When I dropped DirecTV, I found that I was watching about 20 channels, out of the 105 I was paying for. When I signed up with them, XM was the music provider and I really liked that but then, XM dropped the main channel I listened to and eventually, DirecTV went to a different music system that sounded bad and I didn't like the offerings, so there wasn't much incentive to stay. Eventually, I got them to decrease the price, but there wasn't enough going on that could keep me as a subscriber. If I use Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, NetFlix and other paid content providers, I might as well just get satellite or cable because the cost would be about the same.

ATT infuriates me every time I have to call- they don't do what they say they will, the Customer Service people tend to be from off-shore and English isn't their first language (nothing wrong with that except they just keep talking when I want to say something and in some cases, they have no idea what they're taking about) and just about every call takes an hour because of the hold times and calls that end, for reasons other than me hanging up. Time Warner....dealing with them for a customer who had an appointment last Friday- the installer came, looked around and said they needed permission to go onto a neighbor's property to connect the cable and rather than wait the 5 minutes it took for the permission, he left. Couldn't get anyone else out there the same day, so TW sent someone the next day and that one apparently just looked at the pole and said "Yup, that's one of ours" and they left without making an appointment. I got there on Monday and found that nothing had happened, called and was told I could pick up the equipment and connect it. Went to the office and waited before being told that I needed their PIN or my name attached to the account, so that wasted another hour. The customer's wife wasted an hour on Friday and another hour and a half on Saturday on the phone with them and got nowhere. I called at 7:15 yesterday and was again told that my name wasn't attached, but I did have the PIN, so it was more productive. I guess. The agent sounded like he had been a commercial airline pilot. He told me the next appointment was for NEXT Tuesday, but that he would escalate the case. Great. We'll see how that works.

This is a new customer, who moved to MKE and last Friday was the big moving day. Personally, I think they should have called months ago, but that doesn't excuse TW for what's happening. They seem far more interested in getting a good review for the phone calls than making the customer happy.

You're not alone.

 

[Midwesthonky]

You ought to try living in the Midwest, like Milwaukee. ATT U-verse offers a SPECIAL PROMOTION of 15Mbs for $30, but only if you're a new customer or you threaten to leave over the normal rate of $65 for the same speed, which is more than you would pay for 75Mbs, which we can barely get from Time Warner for almost $100. The both offer an $89 package for Phone, TV and Internet, but the internet speed at that price is 5Mbs, which is almost useless at this point.

I cut the cord for TV quite a while ago and while there's clearly not as much to watch, I did it partially because I don't want to be a slave to TV, I don't like having to sign up for 2nd and 3rd tier channels just so I can watch a few more out of the many that come with it and I refuse to pay $100/month just to watch TV. When I dropped DirecTV, I found that I was watching about 20 channels, out of the 105 I was paying for. When I signed up with them, XM was the music provider and I really liked that but then, XM dropped the main channel I listened to and eventually, DirecTV went to a different music system that sounded bad and I didn't like the offerings, so there wasn't much incentive to stay. Eventually, I got them to decrease the price, but there wasn't enough going on that could keep me as a subscriber. If I use Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Prime, NetFlix and other paid content providers, I might as well just get satellite or cable because the cost would be about the same.

ATT infuriates me every time I have to call- they don't do what they say they will, the Customer Service people tend to be from off-shore and English isn't their first language (nothing wrong with that except they just keep talking when I want to say something and in some cases, they have no idea what they're taking about) and just about every call takes an hour because of the hold times and calls that end, for reasons other than me hanging up. Time Warner....dealing with them for a customer who had an appointment last Friday- the installer came, looked around and said they needed permission to go onto a neighbor's property to connect the cable and rather than wait the 5 minutes it took for the permission, he left. Couldn't get anyone else out there the same day, so TW sent someone the next day and that one apparently just looked at the pole and said "Yup, that's one of ours" and they left without making an appointment. I got there on Monday and found that nothing had happened, called and was told I could pick up the equipment and connect it. Went to the office and waited before being told that I needed their PIN or my name attached to the account, so that wasted another hour. The customer's wife wasted an hour on Friday and another hour and a half on Saturday on the phone with them and got nowhere. I called at 7:15 yesterday and was again told that my name wasn't attached, but I did have the PIN, so it was more productive. I guess. The agent sounded like he had been a commercial airline pilot. He told me the next appointment was for NEXT Tuesday, but that he would escalate the case. Great. We'll see how that works.

This is a new customer, who moved to MKE and last Friday was the big moving day. Personally, I think they should have called months ago, but that doesn't excuse TW for what's happening. They seem far more interested in getting a good review for the phone calls than making the customer happy.

You're not alone.

Ditto in the Milwaukee area. Options are limited, the speeds low, and the costs high. I'm with ATT Uverse for internet, but it's not all that great. Time Warner is definitely faster, but their cable sucks compared to DirecTV. Plus TWC really likes to get you on the introductory price but then bends you over without lube when the intro price goes away. If one player could come in with high speed, low cost, and semi-decent service, they could own the market here.

 

[speakerman39]

Ditto in the Milwaukee area. Options are limited, the speeds low, and the costs high. I'm with ATT Uverse for internet, but it's not all that great. Time Warner is definitely faster, but their cable sucks compared to DirecTV. Plus TWC really likes to get you on the introductory price but then bends you over without lube when the intro price goes away. If one player could come in with high speed, low cost, and semi-decent service, they could own the market here.

I also have Time Warner, but was told that Charter bought them out, no? Agree that TW cable sucks! All I do is flip through my channels. Good luck finding something even worth watching. What I am really concerned with is what changes will Charter bring to the table. Will know soon as my rate expires in a few months.


Cheers,

Phil

 

[highfigh]

Ditto in the Milwaukee area. Options are limited, the speeds low, and the costs high. I'm with ATT Uverse for internet, but it's not all that great. Time Warner is definitely faster, but their cable sucks compared to DirecTV. Plus TWC really likes to get you on the introductory price but then bends you over without lube when the intro price goes away. If one player could come in with high speed, low cost, and semi-decent service, they could own the market here.

I am in MKE- finally got a contact number for a retail manger, so I'll see what he can do and whether they're serious about customer satisfaction. I got an e-mail from someone in TW for Business, asking if I wanted to deal with someone who would take responsibility and my first thought was "Be careful about what you ask for" because their track record with my customers' installations and the way they drop the ball WRT what is delivered vs what's on the work order is pretty bad.

The problem with a competitor coming into this market is that they would need to use some of the existing infrastructure and WE Energies owns the poles in most areas, so even TW has to rent space. I have heard that Greenfield is going to implement their own internet- it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Before Time and Warner merged, the cable company in MKE was Warner-Amex and they seem to have paid off some of the MKE aldermen before the contract was signed. I rented from friends before I bought my house and in the early-'80s, my friend was installing C-band satellite equipment. We had a 12' dish on a trailer in the back yard and that really didn't sit well with our next door neighbor, who called the police and then, the alderman. When the officers were in the alley to follow up, the first thing they said was "We just needed to check this out and want you to know that what you're doing is totally legal. BTW- how many channels do you get with this?". The alderman called and said the same things and during the course of the conversation, asked if some of the aldermen could come over to see the picture quality and channel assortment- they were pondering the possibility of MKE installing their own cable TV system but two of the aldermen were totally against it and any suggestions that it might be a viable option. The base cost at the time might have been $9.95/month and now, it's close to $50/month.

The City of MKE gets a lot of money from Time Warner and now, Charter- I seriously doubt the whole city would be able to get approval for an alternative to what we have. The 'burbs might, but not the city. It's too bad- competition is good for the market, but when competition is eliminated......


They use lube, but I don't like the 80 grit, Jalapeño part.

 

[speakerman39]

Was just checking my TW bill and look what I found:

https://www.spectrum.com/merger-twc

Just curious as to when my bill will go up!


Cheers,

Phil

 

[KEW]

I haven't had cable or satellite TV service for well over a decade. Just internet and streaming services. I did buy one of those flat OTA antennas a few years ago in case I wanted to watch anything local but I almost never do.

I think that is good advice for anyone who has cut the cable!
For $18, it is a no-brainer:
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Ultra-Thin-Indoor-Antenna/dp/B00X4RA74A/ref=sr_1_2?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1469630374&sr=8-2&keywords=flat+antenna&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_89:AmazonBasics

Features to look for (which the one I linked above has) are:
1) light and dark sides so you can flip it over to fit your decor.
2) A terminal for the cable at the antenna end, so you can switch to dark/light/longer, or just replace a damaged cable.

Obviously, if you live in a metropolitan area you will get 30-60 channels, and if you live rural, you may only get a handful (and since it is Amazon Prime, free return if you get none).

I probably get 35 channels where I live, and by the time I rule out channels which are shopping, evangelist, in Spanish, etc., I have about 5 channels that I can foresee watching...but even for just one decent channel, $18 one time fee, that is a deal!

Quite honestly, I hardly ever use it. The convenience of Hulu and Netflix showing what I want when I want it makes it hard to get down for committing to sit in front of the TV at a certain time (if I was more of a fan of TV, I guess I could use it with a DVR).
However, it sure is handy when I do use it, which is:
1) If a major and/or local story breaks in the news and I want a live feed in real time.
2) My daughter wants to have friends over to watch "The Batchelorette" - God forbid waiting another day to watch it on Hulu. But with social media and for her, I guess that would be like waiting a day to watch the Super Bowl while all of your friends are talking about what happened last night! I happen to get NBC and CBS, but I have to put the antenna on a different wall (90 degrees) for each.
3) If for some reason you lose internet service, it does give you the option to watch tv. That might be very nice to be able to get info if a major earthquake hit, etc.

I used painters blue tape to hang mine (flat on wall or window) to find out where I got best reception and ended up just using that as my final mounting solution. If you get one, you might want one that is white on one side and dark on the other. Aesthetically, my best location for it is on the top of the window where the shade/curtains hide it from the inside (of course it will look kind of "ghetto" from the outside, but mine happens to face the woods). However, I get different channels if I mount on the wall behind the TV. I use it rarely enough that I now keep it tucked behind my A/V cabinet and just hang it when I need to use it - thus the painters tape. For a more "permanent" mount, you can just use push-pins or thumb tacks with colored heads in the two small holes at the top.

 

[j_garcia]

When I moved, it was Dish that actually dropped ME. There was a large grove of trees across the street from my place and they said signal was poor. So I got out of contract early. Once I was without it, I found I didn't really miss it at all.

 

[Cos]

My story goes on:

I call Comcast and was going to just do the 54.99 X1 75MB internet package with 45 channels (same price as internet alone)
- They then took then order and sent me confirmation for 59.99 with 10 channels

Cancelled

Went online and chatted with Comcast was going to do 75MB Internet 2 HD boxes X1 DVR and HBO w/140+ channels for 113.XX before taxes, sends me the order confirmation, its 128.xx before taxes. I go on chat, show them the chat log where he promises to wave HBO for 24mo and they still don't honor the price

Cancelled

Cable companies must have invented the saying "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't"

 

[j_garcia]

I actually left AT&T because their billing and customer service was so horrible also. I cancelled Comcast many years ago, but here they are actually the best option until Google Fiber comes out next year...at which point I will drop Comcast like so much trash.

I had a service call with Comcast that THEY initiated, not me. They said there would be no charge. On my next bill there was a $75 charge. I was angry when I called them. They refunded it. On top of that, while the guy was here checking the building he said the problem wasn't in the building, it was on their side and actually was only affecting ME. They fixed that and had to credit me $5/month for 1yr because my speed was not what I was paying for, even though I hadn't complained about that yet (I noticed, but it was like 75mbps when I should have been at 100).

While I was talking to them they said "you qualify for a free cable box" I told her I don't want it. She said the tech will leave it there, no charge. I never hooked it up, I left it in the box. The following 2 months there is a $3 charge for the box. I called and said I thought this was free? They said if you DON'T use it, there is a charge.. WHAT THE EFF? I drove to the office and dropped it off and told them I wanted internet ONLY and they reversed the charges and took the box. A week later, another cable box shows up.... I was LIVID

 

[Seth=L]

Awww... my heart bleeds for you. We average 5-6Mbps. Theoretical max is 10, but we never come close. FYI, it's fast enough for streaming movie on FireTV, Pandora on my Thinkpad and wife surfing the web on her Ipad, all at the same time.

I'm sooo sorry you may have to drop to 75. Bless your heart.

"Bless your heart" is the southern "polite way" of insulting someone. It's not even really sarcasm, it's literal pity for ignorance.